Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Carlos Slim’s blog, The New York Times, a known political activist organization and fake news publisher, reached out to interview Gab. Our policy with fake news websites is to either grant them a recorded telephone interview or a written-only interview at our discretion. In this case, we opted for a written interview. We do this to keep the dishonest, politically motivated media in check. Only 6% of the American public trusts the media, and for good reason.

Here is the article that was published on Gab by The New York Times.

Below are the answers to the questions they sent us. We will let you decide if their article was objective, fair, and not politically motivated. The interview was with Utsav Sanduja, Gab’s Chief Communications Officer.

When did Andrew first conceive of Gab, and why did he decide to start a new social media platform?

Andrew first conceived the idea for Gab after reading about the censorship of conservative news and sources on Facebook’s Trending Topics. He witnessed extensive censorship on Reddit, Twitter, and other platforms during the recent election cycle and more broadly noticed a clearly progressive-driven agenda in Silicon Valley where he worked. It was from there he realized that the monopoly in the technology industry had to be shaken up.

What’s the thinking behind the main design features — 300 character limit, up and down voting, and the categories up top and down the side?

Gab has innovated in areas where other platforms have refused to. 300 characters allows for more thoughtful and meaningful discourse in a microblogging environment. Upvoting and downvoting allows both positive and negative sentiment as it empowers the community to surface great content. Categories help users discover interesting topics and diverse communities on Gab who share similar interests. Editing along with edit logs allows users to make quick changes and modify additional information, while keeping the integrity of the post in check.What are the limitations of Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit? What does Gab offer that they don’t?

Facebook, Twitter, and Reddit are taking the path of censorship — Gab does not. This alone sets us apart from Big Social. The aforementioned platforms also rely immensely on advertising revenues for their core business model, a concept that is proving to be futile in an environment of ad blockers on both mobile and desktop web. Lastly, we feel that Big Social does not empower content creators, but rather exploits them as said companies make billions off their creativity, time and energy. Gab takes a different approach — we put the user in charge in the expurgation process, we put content creators first so they can sustain their business and passion. And more importantly, we put free speech above all else.Why a frog? Does the frog have a name?

Gabby the frog was drawn from antediluvian and Biblical sources. First, from Exodus 8:2–7, which is the plague of frogs. The frog serves as a metaphor for Gab “releasing the frogs” on Silicon Valley to expose their corruption, censorship, and information monopoly on the web. Secondly, the African Bullfrog was a source of inspiration after Andrew viewed a Youtube video of this species digging a channel between a drying up pond and a lake to save his tadpoles. Finally, frogs have historically symbolized transformation, rebirth and fertility dating back to the ancient Egyptians and Mesopotamians.

Fake news means media that tells lies. The best lies are difficult to discern but when they tell you that Hillary will win in a landslide, yeah, that was fake. And this is the a good example I can see to red pill those who believe the MSM.

The NYT rag column was not as left-lunatic as I expected, but remained true to Cult form overall.

They just don't get it. There's a chasm between people now, and the reason it is so deep is that the Left Cult went bat-shit crazy these past ten or fifteen years, doubling down on their equalitarian dogma since the 1960's.

They gave a lot of white guys a daily baptism in "we're going to take your stuff, the stuff you created and/or earned and give it to others we deem more deserving" and then they're shocked, shocked that after decades of this, topped by their new "All white people are guilty of racism and deserve to be robbed blind, deaf and dumb," their victims are ENRAGED.

It’s the next logical step after all the blocking and muting on Twitter and filtering and unfollowing on Facebook split America into two social media realities. Where there once was a bubble, now there’s a wall.

There isn't a wall (yet), but there's an unbridgeable chasm; you made it, Mr. Slim (et. al.) when you dragged the country violently to the left; we never moved.

If it turns out that pizzagate is true on all the material facts, it sure would suck for certain people if a list existed, of all the major names - both of the newspapers and social media companies but also of individual editors and accounts - who seemed to go out of their way to besmirch pizza gate as fake and have it squashed out of the news cycle.

If such a list ever surfaced right on the heels of a major scandal involving sex trafficking of children, I can imagine the public demanding that all those individuals be subjected to serious scrutiny. The DOJ over the next four years would probably take it very seriously.

And even if such an individual were later found to have just been a useful idiot, if that list existed, many people might be unwilling to hire someone with a murky past of being a paid shill for a pedo ring, even if by accident.

One would have to be very careful and think very hard about maintaining such a log of the who/whom of Pizzagate, because nobody would want to ruin another person's career prospects or personal life, even if they were hostile to your way of existence and had (inadvertently, of course) been covering for very powerful perverts.

The binary up/down always bugged me. It should be a hover-button that pops up a simple 5x5 grid/target with (agree/like) being up and (disagree/dislike) being down, but also a left-right axis with (irrelevant/unimportant/off-topic) being left and (relevant/important/on-topic) to the right. That catches a great deal more nuance in the opinion.

I don't know how many times I've seen a comment that I strongly agreed with but it was off topic, or I disagreed with but thought the comment was about something that was crucial to the core idea of the thread. Side-jokes might be funny, but they don't really add to most discussions, so you could agree AND dismiss as unimportant, so the important/relevant items can get filtered to the top even if they are liked and disliked strongly in equal measure.

I wouldn't even say the Progressives tried to pull the country to the left. Their dogma is such a batshit pit of insanity it's hard to even apply the traditional left-right dichotomy to it. Even INGSOC had a consistent philosophy behind their stamping boot. The Prog movement is driven by unconstrained mental illness.

I know several hard core Democrats who were disgusted at what the media did this election. Many of them are just as weary of what their Party has become as the alt-right was with the GOP. I even managed to get two of them to vote Trump.

@14, I think something like that will exist eventually. Right now, the biggest problem is that new info is being discovered so fast that it's hard to get a decent snapshot of it, if you want to verify each data point carefully. People are too busy tracking down the next connection to stop and organize it neatly. So there's a lot of data, with more emerging every day, but not much organization. Plus, some of the organizing was wiped out by 4chan and reddit. But it'll get there.

What the Times is trying to do by using #pizzagate and phrases like "Democratic pedophiles" is to become the top link for those phrases if people search for them online. Obviously, they don't want people searching for those things, but if they do, better that they land on the Times article denying at all than on 8chan or somewhere. But they can't do that without inserting the terms further into the ether, and alerting the volunteer investigators that there's still more fire behind all the smoke.

@18 My thinking, JN, was that it would have a range of +2 to -2 (with zero in the middle, of course. (hate, dislike, neutral, like, love) and (utterly irrelevant, odd tangent, not the central topic, address supporting issue, square hit on target and firing for effect!). A really marvelous pun that involves multiple references and twists on the subject at hand might be rated a 2/-2 by clicking in the top left corner, for example. The clicker doesn't need to see the numbers, just the axis extreme labels.

The left really is pushing hard with the fake news, even claiming hidden camera video is heavily edited when there are no breaks as seen in all leftist news.

It's like watching the Hindenburg pull in at Lakehurst.

It wont pull in until Dec 19, but it will bring lots of info on Haitian cheese.

OT:I can't post on alpha game for some reason but on the gay parenting post you should point out that they always comapare gay/lesbians that are able to throw away $50,000+ to buy a kid to Latrina's 21 crack babies.

@32 Trump is in a position to kill the fake news media, and he should do it. Cut off the flow of information to them. They don't do much in the way of investigative journalism any more, so what would they have left to report? Soon the NY Times will be just another website filled with celebrity gossip and cat videos.

So, They went through that whole interview and they mainly used the bit about Gabby? Even then, they cast his answer as a denial that it has anything to do with Pepe and then claim it has everything to do with Pepe. These transcripts exposing how the fake MSM cherry picks interviews and recasts the context of the answers is always educational and helpful for exposing them for what they are.

Gotta love the contempt Andrew has poured onto the left the past couple days.

Reporting on contempt: The RNC called me last night (a very nice Southern woman)wanting me to 're-up' my membership. (I only 'joined" to vote Trump...)

I was very nice to her, but said that I was 100% Alt Right, and I was dedicated to seeing the end of the Republican Party. That they had been unable to even conserve women's bathrooms; and the NeverTrumpers had fought against the one man who might possibly make a difference... so no, I would not EVER be supporting or re-joining the Republican party... (I think she must have heard that sort of thing before... She chuckled at some of what I said, and thanked me before she said goodbye.)

The binary up/down always bugged me. It should be a hover-button that pops up a simple 5x5 grid/target with (agree/like) being up and (disagree/dislike) being down, but also a left-right axis with (irrelevant/unimportant/off-topic) being left and (relevant/important/on-topic) to the right. That catches a great deal more nuance in the opinion.

Reminds me of Slashdot's system. Sounds a wee bit too complex for the general social media audience, with there being a 25 choice box rather than two buttons of like/dislike.

Having been a Slashdot reader, I do get the value of being able to filter and see +5 Funny/Interesting/Insightful posts. But that also had abuse and required meta moderation to keep it in check. Labels are subjective and create a system that can be gamed.

I think the article is a classic smear piece. Can one reasonably expect otherwise? This is fake news at its best and most exemplary. One would think that after the spectacular failure of the entire MSM and their spin and lies and cover-ups about the elections AND having been soundly rejected along side their crooked candidate, that they would seek to find ways to improve and actually write pieces that are based on reality. May they continue to decline!

@2-You've got the lying, but what about the projecting and doubling down? I see the headline as, "New Platform Threatens Free Speech," then something about how Trump lost the popular vote because of it, plus maybe a suggestion that white males hurry up and die.

"Fake news" is totes more effective than "lugenpresse" and without baggage. Plus it hearkens back to a fine moment in Journo-List history, the Texas Nat. Guard "fake but accurate" documents peddled by CBS.

But, but, if I'm friendly and let them interview me on their terms, they'll be impressed by my trust and the soundness of my positions and feel honor-bound to do a fair story on me, right? If I'm super-friendly and make my points gently enough, they could even be converted to the good side, and then we'll all go get ice cream together....

The new narrative is now the Alt-Right is splintering. This is at least the 4th "major" MSM outlet I have seen this on today: http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/ct-alt-right-white-supremacy-20161129-story.html

The first reason is that it suggested violence, or could be construed in a court of law to have suggested violence. If this was the case, and seemed purposeful, you were presumably banned as well.What weev posted to Gab wouldn't be allowed on that forum either. Just that simple.

@57-Would it dishearten or scare them to know what share, probably a majority, of alt-righters still don't know who Richard Spencer is (that was me, until recently). Much less the number that has heard of arm-gesture-gate, aside from as one piece of detritus in a sea of political news?

Andrew Anglin has always had a 'zero-tolerance' policy on that stuff. At the bottom of every Daily Stormer page:Disclaimer

We here at the Daily Stormer are opposed to violence. We seek revolution through the education of the masses. When the information is available to the people, systemic change will be inevitable and unavoidable.

Anyone suggesting or promoting violence in the comments section will be immediately banned, permanently.That predates that forum. And now weev complains that Gab has the same policy, which BTW, they didn't ban him over - they deleted the offending post.

I think 300 character limit might be the big mistake of Gab. the great thing with twitter is that it forces such a short format so that even people with modern attentionspans can read it. Besides, it creates a certain poetry. Maybe it would have been better to extend it just a little bit, same straightjacket but slightly less constricting?

@67 I think the problem with Gab, right now, is the inability to expand and read conversations. The only way to see replies to a post, right now, is to find someone who replied to the post and click on the "in reply to" link at the top.

The alt right has been finished almost as often as TRUMP's presidential candidates. In fact it turned out to be true when Janet Reno said he wouldn't be president in her lifetime, perhaps he helped her along.

I realize that filtering hashtags a la Twitter is a no-no, but perhaps one is needed for "permanent" hashtags.

"I think 300 character limit might be the big mistake of Gab. the great thing with twitter is that it forces such a short format so that even people with modern attention spans can read it. Besides, it creates a certain poetry. Maybe it would have been better to extend it just a little bit, same straightjacket but slightly less constricting?"

I agree - it can be frustrating but is also a strength on twitter, keeps things quicker and to the point.

As far as the alternative to upvoting / downvoting, "Spergs gonna Sperg." It is very simple. You either like a post or you don't. If you want to communicate a complex opinion about the post, here's a novel idea: reply to the post!

I'm glad to see Carlos Slim now mentioned regularly in tandem with the Times. Steve Sailer has been saying this for years. I've also always made it a point to point this out whenever I comment on a New York Times story.

Honestly there is no way in hell a Trump presidency will do any thing more than rearrange chairs on the deck of this sinking ship. The blessing of his election - it buys us a few more years of time to prepare for the inevitable collapse.

I agree - it can be frustrating but is also a strength on twitter, keeps things quicker and to the point.

Maybe expand to only 200 characters.Quitcher fuckin bitchin. If you think you can do better, go do it.

I spent 5 months building a twitter replacement, having to learn php and python in the process. It's a LOT FUCKING HARDER THAN YOU THINK IT IS. I abandoned my effort when gab came out, because it met the most important goal (deconvergence), and everything else is gravy.

tublecane wrote:@57-Would it dishearten or scare them to know what share, probably a majority, of alt-righters still don't know who Richard Spencer is (that was me, until recently). Much less the number that has heard of arm-gesture-gate, aside from as one piece of detritus in a sea of political news?

Probably, and same here. But at the end of the day, they don't care about Spencer or the Alt-Right or any of that.

That is your prerogative as a free person. He is still one of the most effective opponents against the leftist hordes. Its like complaining that Milo is a homo.

Really not relevant to the success of the project.

It's relevant because he's shown his lack of investment in a strategic alliance. The successes must have gone to his head because he seems to think he can fight a culture war by himself. It's a bold strategy, we'll see how it works out for him.

You should choose your insults more precisely. He isn't a coward and you wouldn't describe him as such to his face. I believe what you perceive as backstabbing is due to a particular deficiency of judgment that I'm beginning to notice is common in semites. If the alt-white had any sense, I'd suggest they treat him as a mercenary.

Aeoli Pera wrote:You should choose your insults more precisely. He isn't a coward and you wouldn't describe him as such to his face. I believe what you perceive as backstabbing is due to a particular deficiency of judgment that I'm beginning to notice is common in semites. If the alt-white had any sense, I'd suggest they treat him as a mercenary.

And, to pile on- you, anonymous internet hero quasi-semetic or otherwise, wouldn't describe Spencer as such to his IRL face because of the value you place upon your own IRL face. (Me either, fwiw.) As The Supreme Dark Lord Himself hath decreed*, we cherish and value our extremists. At the very least, they make us look middling.

Pisses me off when jagoffs who have contributed NOTHING complain about design decisions.FWIW, php and mysql is incapable of handling above ~1k messages per second, almost regardless of cpu/memory. I'm done, but if you want to build a twitter replacement, I'd suggest C++ server-side applets running against MongoDB or other in-memory database.

Firstly, being a cuck and sjw slayer is nothing special. Anyone with a pre-school grasp of syllogisms can be one. Cucks and sjw's are the footsoldiers just like the slayers.

If ever there were proverbial fish in a barrel....

@98

I should be more precise. You are right.

Hypocrisy seems to be a sign of cowardice. (((Cernovich))) co-opted the Alt-Right, as did PJW, but then freaked out as soon as the MSM started shitting their pants over whatever. I am getting the impression that (((Cern))) doesnt understand that we are at war, because he seems to be more concernoviched with his career instead of the fact that we are at war. Someone mentioned that the Alt-Right should treat him like a merc... well he certainly acts like it.

Same behavior with the virtue signalling cucks every week during the primary.

At the very least his is disloyal and shows a serious lack of judgement that disqualifies him for any serious consideration as a leading thinker.

The way I see it, PJW and (((Cern))) just tried to John Burch a part of the family that they dont even belong to.

An Instapundit commenter lays out how to fight a successful 4GW campaign against them:

Bart Hall • 9 minutes agoHaving spent a certain amount of time far behind guerrilla lines in several Latin American conflicts -- 'nuff said -- the key thing is to identify center-of-mass targets, the softer the better. Fortunately for our side (with over 300 million guns, trillions of rounds of ammo, and an immense reserve of military experience) the opposition has clearly exposed their CoM targets, and they are all quite soft: Non-STEM academia. Entertainment. Media. Bureaucracy.

Attacks need not be violent. For example, take over publicly-traded media operations and simply shut them down. That worked very well for GM back in the late '40s as they bought up trolley and bus lines for the specific purpose of clearing the transportation field.

Work with state governments to concentrate STEM training at one state-supported university, then starve the others of funding for the humanities. Or close them down in the name of "efficiency".

Eliminate the astoundingly generous tax advantages given to the entertainment industry. It's taxing the wealthy, you know ...

Phase out and eliminate federal funding for federal departments outside of constitutionally-enumerated powers. Education might be a good place to start.

Then, and only then, if you meet with violent resistance, open the gun safes ... but organize your units and choose CoM targets ahead of time. The civil war is under way, but to the extent possible we must fight it as Fourth Generation war, instead of going in guns-blazing and shooting up a meaningless Planned Parenthood clinic.

"Attacks need not be violent. For example, take over publicly-traded media operations and simply shut them down."

This will be useful once the social media bubble pops.

RIght now we somehow have companies that deal in vapid cat pictures and selfies being valued at more than the companies that provide these fluff firms with their servers. It makes zero sense and must eventually meet value discovery. Hopefully Trump imposes it.

Once their market caps are brought into reality they should be easy pickings with crowd-funding spread around places like /pol/ or /r/the_donald.

Imagine the_donald's readership buying out a reddit distressed by the rupture of the social media bubble?